Missing the sunrise on Mount Saint Catherine

A beautiful picture of the mountain covered in snow, and a good dose of underestimation, are what led me to decide to climb Mount Saint Catherine in Egypt’s Sinai.

The mountain is one of the most popular tourist attractions in the peninsula, so I assumed that it must be an easy climb; how else would all these tourists, presumably of different levels of fitness, enjoy it? I was sadly misguided.

Despite the beautiful scenery and the feeling of accomplishment that reaching the top of a mountain brings, there was no joy in the climb for our group of five as no one had mentally prepared for the challenge. One thought, vocalized from time to time, dominated our heads throughout: “I can’t believe this is so hard.”

If you’re planning on climbing Mount Catherine, this is your warning: It is cold and it is exhausting. Once you’ve accepted these facts, preferably in advance, you can start to enjoy the perks that a night on the mountain brings.

Standing at 2641 meters, Saint Catherine is the highest peak in Egypt. During winter, sometimes the mountain becomes covered with a thick layer of snow, adding to its appeal. The trek up the mountain is paved, not too steep and easy to follow.

The mountain was named after a Christian saint whose body, the legend goes, was miraculously transported to the top of the mountain after she was killed. Roman Emperor Maxentius ordered her execution in Alexandria when she became known and successfully converted large numbers of people. A monastery commemorating her can be visited at the foot of the mountain.

Our group aimed at reaching the top of the mountain by sunrise, which meant starting the four-hour climb at midnight. The climb is usually guided by a local Bedouin.

Climbers warm up with a one-hour walk in the valley of Arbaeen that leads to the foot of the mountain. It’s a deceivingly enjoyable start for a painful night.

You feel yourself getting smaller as you walk into the darkness of the breathtaking valley in the midst of mighty mountains and look up at a star-studded sky of the kind that can never be seen in crowded residential areas.

In the first hour of the climb, most climbers in our group who had been dressed for the below-zero temperature of the summit started getting hot and abandoning some of their layers along the way — a mistake that they would come to regret.

Not the most athletic bunch on the mountain, an hour into the climb, we started repeatedly asking our guide how much time was left.  Our experienced Bedouin guide had the good sense to lie. For the following three hours his answer remained the same: One hour.

Our group made it to the summit at two hours before sunrise. After a short celebration we realized that the only cabin on the summit was already full and that we had no shelter until the sun comes up.

Looking for warmth, we went down to shelter ourselves behind some rocks in a lower part of the mountain. Exhausted as we were, we were running on the spot and doing push-ups to heat our bodies.

A tissue stood between warmth and us. Our guide needed a tissue to light a fire, somehow none of us had any and the guide spent two hours trying in vain while we searched our pockets and bags. It’s amazing how much value the most basic items acquire at times like these.

Around 20 minutes before sunrise we were able to squeeze into the small wooden cabin that provides climbers with some much-needed warmth on the summit.

Once inside, we discovered a treasure. One of the groups had brought soup and a small stove and they were giving soup to everyone. Soup on top of that mountain was as valuable as water in the desert.

The cabin was starting to feel increasingly like an over-crowded jail cell, but no one minded, the more the warmer. Climbers were crammed up against the corners of the cabin in silence, each contemplating their own suffering and wondering what they were thinking when they decided to do the climb.

I had entered the cabin by the time the approaching sunrise had turned the horizon orange and melted away the remaining starts. When my friends called me to watch the sun come out, the best I could do was lean over and try to catch a glimpse of it from inside the cabin. I was not about to leave the warmth of the cabin, not even for a breathtaking sunrise.

The three-hour long climb down is physically and psychologically even more exhausting than the climb up. Our group walked in grumpy silence. There was one enjoyable aspect of the hike down though, which was soaking up the sun, now already shining strong.

I can say that our catching sight of our car in the distance was a much more exhilarating sight than that beaming sun.